Before the end of December, the Santa Marina tunnel, the longest of the three on the Extremaduran AVE route, will be a reality.
The tunnel has been built to save the Castaños port, it has a length of 3,421 meters and the execution works are at 97%. It is, in fact, the most advanced infrastructure of the section in which it is located, the one that goes from Grimaldo to Casas de Millán, and represents more than half of its total 6.6 kilometers.
The platform on which the routes through which the Extremaduran AVE will circulate has between Cáceres and Plasencia a total of 11 sections. Of these, four have been completed and the remaining seven are in different phases.
Two of them, both where the Santa Marina tunnel is located and the one that follows it, from Arroyo de la Charca to Grimaldo, will be ready between spring and summer of next year, according to the directors at the end of the season. works on a technical visit to both routes. In total 13 kilometers in which the global investment will exceed 160 million euros.
The first section visited, on the route between Plasencia and Cáceres, the one that reaches Grimaldo, runs through the municipalities of Malpartida de Plasencia, Mirabel and Cañaveral. The route, in fact, runs parallel, although at a higher level, to the A-66 and the N-630, and has four viaducts. In all of them the assembly of the beams has already been completed. The percentage of work carried out amounts to 85%.
More advanced is the second section towards Cáceres, the one that goes from Grimaldo to Casas de Millán and where the Santa Marina tunnel is located, the main infrastructure in this area. In fact, up to 300 operators have worked in this section, compared to 60 in the first and the global budget, of the more than 160 million euros, 145 have been earmarked for it.
The supply problems to residents of the area that caused the start of its construction, which dried one of the aquifers located there, have been resolved, and as the most outstanding security elements, a parallel gallery has been built, which connects to the tunnel through three others, and one more perpendicular to provide the corridor with emergency exits.
Both the width of the tunnel and the platform of both sections between Cáceres and Plasencia is 14 meters, the same as the overall length of the Extremadura route, to accommodate the so-called electrified double gauge of international width. That is, so that trains that reach up to 300 kilometers per hour can circulate through it.
Another thing is that these trains arrive in the region. Because at the moment the double track is not contemplated, although the platform being built is suitable for it. In any case, what Adif technicians pointed out is that the latest deadlines given by Minister Íñigo de la Serna are maintained. In other words, after a decade of works at the moment, because they have not yet finished, the entire platform between Badajoz and Plasencia (178.6 kilometers) will be completed in 2019 and electrified in 2020.
But it must be clarified that this does not mean that that year the train trip from Badajoz to Madrid can be done in less than three hours. Because for that the Extremadura route must continue from Plasencia to Castilla-La Mancha, an autonomous community in which the works are even more delayed.
SOURCE: HOY.ES
